Scarlett
The onions burn before I realise I’ve stopped stirring.
The smell hits first—sharp, acrid, wrong—and I jerk the pan off the heat, my hand shaking just enough to slosh oil onto the stove. It hisses like it’s alive. Like it’s warning me.
I’m barefoot on cold marble, wearing one of Noah’s shirts because mine still smell like salt and blood and jungle rot, and I keep telling myself this is normal. This is what normal looks like. Cooking. Waiting. Playing house with a man who thinks love is ownership with a cleaner label.
My phone is face-down on the counter. I haven’t touched it all morning.
I don’t need to.
Kai doesn’t text when he wants to be heard.
He leaves things behind.
I’m reaching for the salt when I hear it.
Not footsteps.
Not the polite, measured cadence Noah uses when he wants to appear calm.
This is fast. Heavy. Uneven.
The kitchen door slams so hard the glass rattles.
I turn.
Noah is standing there with his jaw locked and his eyes blown wide, his hand clenched around a fistful of paper so tight it’s crumpled into something damp and ruined. His face is flushed, a deep, ugly red creeping up his neck like something crawling.
For half a second, neither of us speaks.
The air feels thick. Pressurised. Like the moment before a storm breaks something in half.
“What the fuck is this?” he snaps.
He throws the papers onto the counter. They skid, fan out.
My stomach drops.
I know them instantly.
Kai’s handwriting is unmistakable—sharp, angular, violent. The ink heavy in places where the pen pressed too hard, like it couldn’t contain him.
Letters.
Not notes. Not scraps.
Letters.
“You went through the bathroom,” I say.
My voice sounds strange to my own ears. Calm. Flat. Like I’m already bracing for impact.
Noah laughs.
It’s not humour. It’s hysteria wearing teeth.
“I went through the trash, Scarlett,” he says. “Because I was looking for a fucking razor blade, and instead I find a love letter manifesto from a psychopath.”
He grabs one, waves it in the air.
‘You wear his ring but you still dream in my name.’
My throat tightens.
“Did you read them?” I ask.
That stops him.
Just for a second.
His face twitches. His grip tightens until the paper tears.
“Of course I fucking read them,” he explodes. “What do you think I am? An idiot?”
He steps closer. The kitchen suddenly feels too small. The counters too sharp. The exits too far away.
“You hid these,” he continues, voice rising, cracking at the edges. “In my house. In our bathroom. Like some kind of sick little shrine.”
“They weren’t hidden,” I say quietly.
He freezes.
“What?”
“I didn’t hide them,” I repeat. “I didn’t think you’d look.”
Silence.
Then his laugh comes again—louder this time, jagged, almost manic.
“Oh my god,” he says. “Oh my god.”
He rakes a hand through his hair, pacing now, the letters clenched in his fist like evidence.
“You didn’t think I’d look,” he repeats. “Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking Christ.” He turns on me so fast I flinch. “Do you know what this says about you?” he demands. “Do you know how this makes you look?”
I shrug.
It’s small. Barely there.
But it enrages him.
“They’re from your stepbrother, Scarlett!” he shouts. “Your stepbrother. Do you understand how fucking disgusting that is?”
The word lands wrong.
Not because it’s untrue.
Because it’s irrelevant.
“Kai isn’t—” I start.
“No,” Noah cuts in sharply. “Don’t. Don’t you dare romanticise it.”
He slams the papers down again, flattening them with his palm.
“This isn’t poetic. This isn’t tragic. This is sick.” He leans in, eyes drilling into mine. “He writes about watching you sleep,” he says. “He writes about knowing what you taste like when you’re scared. He writes about carving his name into you like you’re fucking property.”
My pulse thunders.
“And you kept them,” he continues, quieter now. More dangerous. “You kept them.”
I meet his gaze.
“Yes.”
The word is soft.
Final.
Something snaps behind his eyes.
“You’re standing in my kitchen,” he says slowly, “wearing my shirt, cooking my food, while you keep letters from a man who wants to destroy us.”
I tilt my head.
“Did you read the part where he says you’re temporary?”
That’s the wrong thing to say.
He grabs my wrist, hard.
Not bruising.
Not yet.
But claiming.
“You don’t get to do this,” he hisses. “You don’t get to humiliate me in my own house.”
“I didn’t ask you to read them.”
His fingers tighten.
“I don’t care,” he snaps. “I don’t care what you asked. I care about what you owe.”
There it is.
The word that always comes eventually.
Owe.
“You’re mine,” he says. “You’re about to be my wife. And I won’t have another man—especially not some fucked-up family mistake—writing himself into you like this.”
I pull my hand free.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
“Kai isn’t a mistake,” I say.
The room goes dead silent.
Noah stares at me like I’ve just confessed to murder.
“You’re defending him,” he whispers.
I don’t answer.
Because there’s nothing left to defend.
He exhales sharply, then nods—once, like he’s reached a conclusion.
“Fine,” he says. “Then we’re done pretending.”
He gathers the letters, folds them neatly, and tucks them into his pocket like a decision.
“We’re moving the wedding forward,” he continues. “We leave for the island early.”
My heart stutters.
“What?”
“You need distance,” he says. “From him. From this.”
He looks at me like he’s already won.
“And you’ll thank me for it.”
I glance at the stove.
The onions are black now. Smoking.
Ruined.
Just like the quiet life I tried to build on top of a lie.
Behind my ribs, something old and feral stirs.
And for the first time, I don’t wonder if Kai will come for me.
I wonder how much blood Noah is going to spill trying to stop him.
“Noah—”
I barely get his name out before he moves.
He crowds me, backing me into the counter so hard my spine rattles against marble. The pan behind me screeches as it tips, oil spitting like it’s furious too.
“Don’t,” he snaps. “Don’t say my name like you still get to soften this.”
I can feel him shaking. Not fear. Not uncertainty.
Rage that’s been looking for permission.
“I tried to give you space,” he continues, voice tight and sharp. “I tried to be patient. I told myself everyone has history, everyone has ghosts.”
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the letters again, slamming them down between us.
“But this?” he says. “This isn’t history. This is an obsession.”
I shake my head, tears already burning.
“It’s not what you think.”
He laughs — loud, hollow, ugly.
“Oh, it’s exactly what I think,” he says. “You don’t keep letters like this unless you’re feeding something.” He leans closer, his face inches from mine. “So I’ll ask you once.”
His eyes flick to my throat. My chest. Like he’s looking for evidence carved into me.
“Did you fuck him?”
The word hits like a gunshot.
I stop breathing.
Everything stops.
Noah watches it happen — the way my face goes blank, the way my mouth opens without sound, the way my eyes betray me before I can build a lie fast enough.
His pupils dilate.
“Oh,” he whispers. “Oh fuck.”
He straightens slowly, like something inside him just locked into place.
“You did,” he says. Not a question now. A verdict. “You fucked him.”
“Noah, I—”
“You fucked your stepbrother,” he explodes, slamming his fist into the counter so hard the bowl beside us shatters. Ceramic sprays across the floor like bone. “You sick, lying, fucked-up—”
“I didn’t—” My voice breaks completely now. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Don’t,” he snarls. “Don’t you dare rewrite it.”
Tears spill over. I can’t stop them.
“You don’t love me,” I choke. “If you did, you wouldn’t look at me like this. You wouldn’t—”
He laughs again, sharp and cruel.
“Love?” he spits. “Love doesn’t hide letters from another man in my bathroom.”
He grips my arms now — hard enough to hurt, not enough to leave marks. Strategic. Controlled.
“You don’t love me,” he says. “You used me. You used my name, my money, my protection to build a wall between you and him.”
“That’s not true,” I sob. “I was trying to survive.”
“By keeping him alive in your head?” he shoots back. “By letting him write to you? By letting him tell you what you are?” He leans in until his mouth is right by my ear. “This ends now.”
The words are ice-cold.
Final.
“You don’t see him again,” he continues. “You don’t read him. You don’t think about him.” He pulls back, forcing me to look at him.“And if I find out you lied to me again—if I find out you ever let him touch you after this moment—”
He doesn’t finish the sentence.
He doesn’t have to.
My chest feels like it’s collapsing in on itself.
“You don’t get to punish me for your fear,” I whisper.
That does it.
His face hardens completely — all warmth gone, replaced by something sharp and transactional.
“I absolutely fucking do,” he says. “Because you belong to me now.” The words settle into the room like poison gas. “And I’m not losing you to a man who thinks he owns you because he wrote pretty threats on paper.”
He steps back, smoothing his shirt like the explosion never happened.
“We leave for the island early,” he repeats. “No more delays. No more distractions.”
I slide down the cabinet, my legs giving out, my hands shaking.
“This isn’t love,” I whisper.
He looks down at me, expression unreadable.
“No,” he says. “It’s containment.”
And as he turns and walks out of the kitchen, I realise something with terrifying clarity:
Noah isn’t trying to save me from Kai.
He’s trying to lock me away before Kai comes to collect what he never stopped hunting.